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Conflicting plans drown out meaningful transit improvement: James

Our political and transportation leaders have failed to inspire us. Rather, they have filled us with skepticism and doubt.

On Thursday, Workers manoeuvre large concrete sections that make up the tunnel for the Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit line that will run from Black Creek Dr. to Kennedy Rd. (Bernard Weil / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

At a time when the Toronto city region is building the most expensive and expansive transit improvements in history, the public is confused, discouraged and generally pessimistic about our ability to tame, much less improve on encroaching gridlock.

In short, our political and transportation leaders have failed to inspire us. Rather, they have filled us with skepticism and doubt.

Metrolinx, the provincial agency in place to guide us, is too guarded and careful not to vex its political masters in the provincial government.

The Toronto Transit Commission, dependent on city hall for sustenance and political relevance, too often bends to the prevailing doctrine.

Citizen advocates get co-opted, as evidenced by the pro-transit community’s full embrace of Transit City, the all-LRT plan for Toronto, despite some obvious flaws. For example, when that vision held sway, where was the talk about the absolute need for a Downtown Relief Line as the city’s number one priority?

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Consider what’s facing the average Toronto resident.

We’re building a subway extension to Vaughan, where the destination is green fields backed by plans for future development. Residents in the Scarborough Town Centre district look at Jane and Highway 7 and wonder, “If them, then why not us?”

We’re building a 21st-century LRT across Eglinton from Black Creek Dr. to Kennedy Rd., encompassing part of the route for the Eglinton subway Mike Harris killed. Construction will be disruptive even though it’s underground through the central city. It’s costly. It’s being built by Metrolinx and the TTC will operate it. It’s the ultimate test project that will determine if another LRT is built in Toronto. Screw this up and the Rob Fords of this world will live off “subways, subways, subways.”

Meanwhile, two LRT lines — along Sheppard and Finch — are in limbo, no matter what you hear.

Along Finch West, two city councillors have convinced their constituents that LRTs are horrible beasts to be avoided at all costs. The third councillor, Anthony Perruzza, is cowed into silence. Give us buses, anything but those “damned streetcars,” the citizens say, riled by councillors Vincent Crisanti and Giorgio Mammoliti. (They think they are going to get a subway. Poor wretches. The Finch subway would open around 2097, if ever.)

The Sheppard folks have more reason to hold out for a subway. But that’s not happening any time soon, either.

In plan A, the one Karen Stintz and John Tory would keep and Olivia Chow and David Soknacki would overturn, the Bloor-Danforth subway would extend beyond Kennedy out to McCowan and turn north to Sheppard. There it would meet the Sheppard LRT. And this LRT would take passengers to Don Mills Rd. where they’d transfer to the Sheppard stub-way.

Silly this would be. Either make the whole thing a subway; or LRT; or something else. But going from subway to LRT to subway could be maddening.

In Plan B, first approved by city council, then rejected in favour of Plan A last year, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT would veer north from Kennedy station up to the Scarborough Town Centre and up to Sheppard. There it would meet with the Sheppard LRT, running east-west and taking passengers to the Sheppard stub-way at Don Mills. Now, the stub-way is the orphan and travel times are likely too long to lure enough people out of their cars.

There is no comprehensive vision of a network, no modelling of how people get around and what technology will best serve this. What prevails are claims and noise and confusion about what would really deliver the goal: increased transit ridership, reduced car dependency and reduced congestion.

Transit City folks ignored the practical option of modern RT technology like Vancouver’s SkyTrain, an option that seems viable to link Scarborough and the suburbs seamlessly into the core.

The subway constituency ignores the reality of cost and importance of ridership to justify heavy rail.

Nobody knows when best to take a pause and re-examine where we’re headed.

John Tory’s SmartTrack is a breath of fresh air. But the candidate needs to go further, notwithstanding that political reality suggests this is a post-election mantra.

If, in fact, we can use the GO corridors, as Tory suggests, then that express rail service would move commuters quickly from the outer suburbs across town. LRTs could be reserved for local and inner-suburb travel. And subways would form the spine of a dense core of the city-centre region.

For that kind of data-driven, comprehensive plan we need a mayor not tied to any camp, one prepared to slay sacred cows, one with the capital to change hearts and minds in the city, at Queen’s Park and in Ottawa.

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